


Ashes to Diamond: Let Your Memories Shine Forever

by SnowLili



Category: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29274957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowLili/pseuds/SnowLili
Summary: [One-Shot] Tseng watched her grown up surviving constant pressure. Zack helped her to break free from the chain of fate. Cloud reached out for her to move forward. In which tales were written from the POV of her three companions. — Tribute for Aerith Gainsborough. Written for AerithWeek2021. [Zerith, Tserith & Clerith friendships unless you squint too hard]
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough & Tseng, Zack Fair & Aerith Gainsborough, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Kudos: 9





	Ashes to Diamond: Let Your Memories Shine Forever

**Author's Note:**

> It was super difficult to write Soldier!Cloud, I feel like I'm going back and forth with his thought. But more importantly, I wanted to showcase Aerith in their eyes. I probably should have make a Tifa version but why it this 3000++ words already?!

" _All is beautiful and unceasing, all is music and reason, and all, like diamond, is carbon first, then light_."—Jose Marti.

* * *

**i. Tseng**

She had a habit of lying—not just to others, but also to herself. Although he wouldn't put the blame on her. How much could a kid her size endured the whole predicament?

But she was strong.

Even when she was a seven years old kid who never knew how to fight, she was strong emotionally. She saw her mother being taken day in and day out, being returned with even more internal scars than before. Hojo was notorious with his insanity. But Ifalna never cried. She never complained a single word about it either. Instead, she smiled when she returned to her daughter. Tseng thought Aerith probably inherited that strength from Ifalna. Occasionally Tseng could see Aerith going into some sort of stance, drawing things with the crayons given to her, and her mother would smile and praise her like the kid deserves.

He was a Turk. He had no business feeling sorry for what they did. It didn't matter what Shinra and Hojo were doing to the two last Ancients. It was not his job to worry about them being mentally tortured or even physically experimented. Tseng decided he shouldn't look too much for the sake of his own conscience. The less he knew the better.

When they both escaped the Shinra imprisonment, the SOLDIERs and the Turks were sent after them. Ifalna was strong though. She lasted until freedom against the entire army while keeping Aerith safe. Tseng wondered if this was what people call the mothers love. The moment Tseng recovered Ifalna's body, Aerith was missing. He debated if he should just report them missing, but alas, he was a Turk. He chose to be a Turk. And thus Ifalna's corpse was back to Hojo's side. Tseng decided it was much better if he left not knowing what Hojo did to the body.

When Tseng finally found the lady who had taken Aerith in, he tried to talk her out. After all, she had drawn that mural in her room in Shinra Tower. And that was when the series of self denial kicked in.

"You're wrong! I'm not an Ancient!"

Tseng was pretty sure they all knew she was the last Ancient, and yet she wanted to believe so badly she wasn't. She was fighting so desperately to be normal. She ignored the voices of the planet, and even was oblivious to her mother's.

She wouldn't be of any use to Shinra at her current state. So Tseng waited. She needed time to recover from the constant trauma for the first seven years of her life. He would gladly give that to her. She deserved it at least. Not that Shinra cared much with the Wutai War full in their plate.

Being her unofficial guardian gave Tseng the front seat to watching her grow up. She was a cheerful talkative kid. She was friendly by nature. He had always knew that. Even during Shinra confinement, she made friends easily with the kids and adults within the concrete walls. But she was still different from the other kids, no matter how hard she tried to deny her ancestry. And kids their age didn't take diversity very kindly.

Tseng observed how she grew from the friendly talkative kid into a reserved reticent teenager. But she was still kind, still mischievous. She gave to the people even when they secretly didn't like her—she offered help to the orphanage, and those who needed it, she taught kindness despite the unfair world. And really, who else were more accustomed to it than her. Over the time she became more adept to her own lies—her normal life persona—, and the Sector 5 slums seemed to have forgotten her eccentricities and grew attached to her instead. Guess kindness always had that effect. She never cried. At least not in his presence. But she always had this guard up about her private inner self, the real her. And the fact that she chose to be kind and playful despite her loneliness and solitude hit Tseng deeper than he would like to admit.

Tseng chose to sell his conscience for power.

He wasn't as kind and strong as Aerith. SOLDIERs were weird and crazy for selling their life for power. Tseng himself was no different.

That was probably why when he saw Aerith smiling and laughing when she met Zack, Tseng felt as if he was looking at the old Aerith—kind, talkative, cheerful, playful, mischievous. The fact that Zack was able to bring out Aerith's true self within 18 months—something Tseng couldn't do in ten years—made Tseng secretly root for them to make it together.

But they didn't.

Tseng gave up on his own conscience, watching what Hojo did to Ifalna repeating again on Zack. He didn't have the heart to tell Aerith about it. He wished Aerith would eventually forget about him. But she didn't. Of course she didn't. Who was he kidding? She never did forget about anything. Not Ifalna, not the bullies, and definitely not Zack. She just lied to herself that she did.

And as she was passing him letters for Zack every two weeks for four years, Tseng felt himself crumbling inside. He wanted to save Zack. Let this be his final piece of his creed—his final sanity. But he couldn't even succeed this final creed. He failed.

"We've waited too long. It's time. Bring us back the last Ancient," was his order.

She was like a diamond, so beautiful against all odds—found only in the darkness of the earth. He watched her grew up into a beautiful lady, fell in love, found her dream job—despite all the inequitable circumstances. He also snatched them all away—directly or indirectly. It didn't matter how he felt for her, or how much he wanted to protect that fake smile she used to hide her solitude—a smile that turned real when she was with Elmyra and Zack. None of them matter. He wasn't kind, he wasn't strong. This was his job.

He was a Turk after all.

* * *

**ii. Zack**

When he opened his eyes after that fall—literally and figuratively—he though he had died. He probably already did die a little inside, with all the events spiralling fast in his life, something he wished he could salvage, but he was losing hope for it. This wasn't the SOLDIER he envisioned he would be. Even though, looking back, he was probably too naive when he thought about being a hero back in Gongaga.

He was losing himself. He didn't have the strength to uphold the honour legacy Angeal so much as ditched him with. And he probably wouldn't mind dying considering his sorry state right now.

Especially not when he was greeted with the sight of a beautiful angel the first thing upon waking up. Or at least he thought she was an angel. He wasn't too far off though. She would always be an angel in his eyes.

Her chuckle was ethereal, and Zack wondered if love at first laugh was actually a thing. Well, it was probably love at first sight in his case but who cares about details. His point still stands.

"No, I'm Aerith."

Well, basically an angel. He sat up slowly, taking in the bright ambience around him—something he had never really seen on the upper plate, nor the slums, even though to be fair, he rarely visited the slums other than for some missions anyway.

"Heaven?" It was probably conceited of him to assume he would be going to heaven had he died. But if this was hell, with this angel by his side? Then he'd pick hell over heaven anytime.

"Church in the slums. You fell out of the sky. Scared me." Huh. So he was the fallen one after all, even if she was more suitable for the angel part.

She was bubbly, talkative, cheerful, confident. All the kinds of a girl he always dreamed of. He loved every small motions she made, and suddenly the thought of losing hope for his predicament just evaporated. When she suggested them to walk around the slums, she wasn't so much as blinking to confirm she, indeed, wanted to spend more time with him. A girl after his own heart. Except that small moment really made him trapped even further in her web. Each seconds they spent together made him fell even more in love each day, even when he thought it was impossible.

She was adored by the people in the slums, evidenced by how they greeted her in every steps. She was kind, selfless and altruistic. She was so convinced the boy who pickpocketed him had a reason to do so—which the boy did. And even when they reached the stall, the shop owner seemed to be concerned about her happiness—good that he approved of Zack though.

She stared at the ribbons way too long in his watch. And he had a hunch she had always wanted it. So he offered to buy it for her, and used her saving him as an excuse. Her choice of picking the pink ribbon intrigued him. It was simple, nothing expensive, not too modern design either. But he bought it for her because she wanted it, and gently put it on. She glowed in pink, accentuating the pinkish complexion of her skin. And Zack thought pink was definitely her colour. Zack wondered why she didn't just come out and say that she liked pink, since she obviously did. So Zack gave her a small push. "Why don't we make a promise every time we meet? For example, when we meet, you always have to dress in pink." She dismissed it as usual, but he learned later that she picked up that offer and let her love in pink dominate, even if he didn't have the chance to see it.

Even back then he knew she was hiding something. She was scared of the open sky, scared of being herself, scared of being out of normalcy, as if it was a bad thing. And there was something inside him that made him feel as if she was carrying a burden far heavier than her petite shoulders could carry. Until Cissnei told him she was an Ancient, the last of her kind. Not that it changed any of his love for her—she was still the Aerith he knew—, but it was enough for him to worry. If that was enough for her to constrained herself with a fake smile, then he knew there were things that ran deeper than just afraid of wearing pink.

He told Tseng later to take care of her. At least when he wasn't able to.

She saved him in more ways than one. Even if she might not noticed it.

When he was giving up, she gave him hope. When he was in despair, she gave him comfort. When he was broken, she fixed him. In the midst of his crises with Shinra and SOLDIER, wondering if he made the right choice in his life, she gave him her warmth and embrace. She was the light in his darkness, the oasis in his desert. She reminded him of home—so comforting, so forgiving and filled with love. And she really reminded him of home.

And thus he wrote home for the first time, since he hadn't apologise for being so adamant about being a SOLDIER. And he wrote an afternote at the end of the letter; _I have a girlfriend_. Because she light up his life, and he wanted her parents to meet her. He was sure they'll love her, just as much as he did.

Zack learned later on that the ribbon he bought for her was similar to the one her late mother gave her. The thought that it was something that important just broke him, and he gave her a gentle homely hug, the way she had given him. He'd do anything for her, he'd give her everything—as long as he got to spend time with her.

Spending more time with Aerith was definitely the highlight of his day. Even when they were miles apart, he always anticipated her phone calls. Her voice alone was enough for his thirst for her. Sometimes he would call her, but that was a little tricky since she didn't have her own cellphone. So he figured some kind of timing to call her landline to avoid Elmyra, even though he slipped a few times. That lady loved to give him a piece of her mind—something about SOLDIERs love to die and leave them ladies alone in this world. Zack wasn't really sure about the 'love to die' part, but he would go through anything just for Aerith. He would die for her as well.

Things went downhill since Nibelheim, and when he learned he had unintentionally abandoned Aerith unanswered for almost five years, he was broken. As if he had lost the only pillar that held him up. Especially when he found out how much she wanted to spend more time with him. He wished he could fly to her and hug her, tell her that he loved her just as much if not more, that he would die for her... And died for her he did. He wished Cloud would find her and take good care of her. He wished she could be happy again, something he wasn't able to do for her. But he didn't regret a single moment in his life—for Cloud, for Aerith, for Angeal, for all his friends. He would do it all over again.

Because her very existence itself was enough of a blessing for him. Her exuberance, her selflessness, her confidence, her kindness, her forgiveness, her nonjudgemental self—she was the centre of his world. The love that kept him going till his last breath. The love that probably will stay with him in the Lifestream.

And that was enough.

* * *

**iii. Cloud**

Cloud's first impression of Aerith: She's weird.

Cloud's second impression of Aerith: She's super weird. Well, she talked to flowers for one.

Even though, to be fair, their first meeting really slipped his mind the first time. Not until she reminded him of the flowers. Now that she mentioned it, his first impression of her was even more weird. She was struggling against invisible armies and somehow transferred the vision to him. He wasn't sure how he could forget that weird meeting in the first place. Perhaps the Mako Reactor bombings had taken a huge toll on him, more than he would like to admit. He learned later on that they were Whispers who were attracted to people trying so hard to defy fate. Though which fate exactly she tried so hard to defy was beyond him.

But the concurrent meetings just whooped him up. She was obviously lying to him. And it baffled him how obvious she was and yet she continued the facade. She told him she didn't know what the Turks wanted from her. And yet she knew Reno and Rude as if they were her acquaintances. But this was his job. It wasn't his habit to question the motive and nature of each requests. As long as he was paid, then it was fine—even if he put up a front claiming the pay sucked.

She pretended to be helpless, but she really wasn't. She was brave—she wasn't even scared of the cloaked man with #2 tattoo at the Sector 5 slums children's secret hideout. Cloud wondered if that incidence made her someone brave, or maybe impetuous and reckless. Cloud would be more careful of something as suspicious as the cloaked man. He was with Marco, he definitely would with this #2 as well. There was no such thing as being too careful. She jumped into Don Corneo's lair without quivering even though she never even met Tifa. She ran around the haunted maintainance facility when he himself was... concerned about the ghosts.

She didn't need a bodyguard. She needed comrades.

He realised that a little too late, of course.

She possessed the quirkiness and haughtiness that matched him. Which was also weird because she wasn't taking his bullshit but feeding up his ego at the same time. She was unapologetically herself, as if she just bursted out of a closet after years of being boxed in. She was chatty and friendly—albeit a little too nosy—, and while it took him a while to warm up to it, she had this vibe that softened and slowed him down. She left him speechless countless times, and Cloud wondered if he could ever handle her on personal basis.

It piqued his interest when she seemed to have a certain curiosity about SOLDIERs. She had a certain affinity towards them too, as if she had known SOLDIERs far more than average people did. And surprisingly enough, she didn't lie about this when she told him about her first love. Somehow, it kind of made sense why she was so adamant in spending time with him. She was longing for something, desperately trying to move on from a past she held dear. For the first time, Cloud felt as if he genuinely talked to her. Until his mind swirled at the mention of the name of her love. It was painful, and it was happening very often recently. But he didn't really had time to contemplate. She moved at her own pace, and Cloud was compelled to follow.

If Cloud would summarise her, he would say she was stubborn, witty, and conceited—not that he was much different.

But she was also kind, perceptive, decisive, and way too forgiving for Cloud's liking. She didn't know Tifa that much. He only mentioned her a few times. And yet she jumped at the opportunity to help her. She drew conclusions easily of things even he didn't understand—mainly his own feelings and emotions. She knew where her help was needed. She never argued much when it came to that, selflessly helping to evacuate the people in Sector 7 slums at a single command. And she probably had already forgiven President Shinra before he even repented. She was so much like Tifa in that sense. And Cloud wondered if these girls were cut out to fight in this war.

And just because of that, it didn't surprise Cloud how well those two got along right off the bat. They had quite some similarities after all. But as Cloud learned about her ancestry and her solitude, Cloud wondered if he had more similarities to Aerith than she did Tifa. Growing up detached with a make-believe dream so impossible to achieve. They were both scared of the future, they were both longing for something, they were both eager to challenge destiny—her even more so that even the Whispers went after her.

Except the Whispers wouldn't be the only one to go after her. He would too—they all would. She had layers he was curious and eager to peel off. Just like how she peeled off his own layers effortlessly within a day. There was more to them than this. Because the fact that she was an Ancient, was enough for him to worry. Even if she told him that it was not that bad, he knew better by now she would lie about it.

He told her just as much when she visited him in his dreams before they took off to save her. Because she didn't seem to connect to him when they talked—she was unreachable.

"Whatever happens, you can't fall in love with me. Even if you think you have, it's not real."

Her words rang so obscurely that Cloud couldn't get it out of his head. What exactly wasn't real? His emotions? Or his memories? He didn't get why she was being so pessimistic about it. Or perhaps there was some connotations to it. There was something she knew that she wasn't telling them. And knowing her ancestry, he figured it was probably a taboo topic of some sorts.

But the more he thought about it, the more Cloud felt as if she was saying goodbye. As if she wanted to tell him beforehand that she cherished their time together.

And if that was goodbye, he'd gladly spit on fate right in the eye.

He would defy destiny and raise beyond.

Because their time together was short, but there wasn't anything in his life he didn't cherish. He too believed the future wasn't set in stone. He too wanted to believe in themselves. She gave him hope and clarity, a small ray of light in the midst of chaos.

He might have thousand of missing puzzles in his life and his memories, but one thing he was damn sure about; his friends were not those missing puzzles. They were his rock that ground him. This time, he hoped that they could make it... together.

Because he wasn't about to fight this hard for a world with only her memories, even if her memories will shine on forever.


End file.
